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Published: February 19th 2018
How Far Is It?
But at 10 MPH, COLD temps, howling wind, and over a mountain range!I have been thinking a lot about the race, and how hard it is to imagine what the teams go through. Saying, "The Iditarod is a thousand miles," is quite different from picturing the distance in more concrete terms. For example, the distance is about equivalent to the distance between Minneapolis, MN, and Bozeman, MT...imagine doing that at 5-10 miles per hour, with temperatures 20-50 degrees below zero, snow, and potentially gale force winds! Oh yeah, add in crossing the Alaska Range, too! I'm glad I'll be sitting in the Com Center entering data!
A couple of weeks ago, I watched the DVD,
Cold and Fast that I received after joining the Iditarod Trail Committee. The film is about the 45th running of the race in 2017, and gives a vivid feeling of what the mushers and their teams go through. I also found a film called "The Toughest Race on Earth" at the library, about the 2008 Iditarod. It features a few specific mushers and their teams, exposing the personal side of the race. It is a 6-part Discovery Channel documentary that gets up close and personal, showing what it can be like on the trail. There are 6 45-minute segments on Youtube that each corresponds to one week's episode as broadcast on Discovery. If you're interested, you can find them under the title "
&t=22s">Toughest Race on Earth Iditarod 01," and watch them in sequence. And, I found a book called
by Debbie Clarke Moderow, which documents her life, alternating chapters about her life before the race with chapters about her journeys to Nome in 2003 and 2005.
I'm looking forward to meeting some of these amazing athletes...and their coaches!
